>> coming up on c-span's "washington journal," a look at the state of free speech in the u.s. with suzanne nossel, ceo of the pen america center. then walmart virginia representative dave brat on the spending stalemate in the u.s. and the future of the republican party. "washington journal" starts now. ♪ host: good morning and welcome to "washington journal." with a possible government shutdown looming, americans are wondering once again about the state of our government. senators and representatives are trying to find some way to work together to come up with a

budget with a small group of hardliners holding up the process. the supreme court seems to have a new public controversy every week. and the upcoming presidential election may mean change coming out of the white house. with all of this, our question for you this morning is about your level of satisfaction with washington. what is your current level of satisfaction with u.s. politics? we are opening up our regular lines. that means, democrats, we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8000. republicans, your number is (202) 748-8001. independents, you can call (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. and we are always reading on social media, on facebook at facebook.com/cspan, on x at @cspanwj, and you can always follow us on instagram at

@cspanwj. americans are once again looking at a possible government shutdown in just about a week or so if republicans and democrats cannot come together and get a budget, or at least a short-term cr, through. with all this coming out of washington, our question for you is what is your level of satisfaction with u.s. politics? are you happy with the way government is going, are you unhappy? and if you are not, what are your solutions? there's a pew research poll i want to bring to you that asks that very question, what is the level of satisfaction with the political system in the united states. i will bring you the results right here. this comes from a pew research poll done earlier this month. right now, it says 4% -- only 4% -- of u.s. adults say that the political system is working extremely or very well.

16% of americans say they trust the federal government always or most of the time. but 63% say that they express not too much or no confidence at all in the future of the u.s. political system. so if you look at the results of this poll, not many americans right now have a high level of satisfaction with u.s. politics. we want to know what you think, and if you are not satisfied with how the u.s. political system is working, what is your solution? what should we be doing different? let's go straight to our phone lines and talk to ed, calling from georgia on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. yeah, my problem is, as of the last tuesday, the 19th, we now owe over $33 trillion.

and as most people do not know, we never pay anything but the interest. we never put a dime on the principal. if we were to pay $1 billion a year on the cancer bulk, it would still take 33,000 years to get rid of the debt. we are in big trouble. host: so what do we do? do we cut defense? do we cut social programs? do we raise taxes? how do we get rid of this debt and not affect the health and well-being of americans? caller: what i think as we ought to cut all the freebies. this country was not meant to be supporting everybody. they are supposed to support themselves. host: ok, tell me what you call a freeby. are you talking social security, medicare? caller: well, social security, we paid for that, so i do not consider that a freeby. host: what are you calling a

freeby? what should we cut? caller: i am talking about there is people out there right now getting money, and some of them are illegal people getting $500 a week. it is crazy what is going on. host: all right. let's go to gary, calling from jacksonville, florida on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. you know, these republicans that come on, they are unbelievable. a couple days ago, there was someone talking about hunter biden not paying $40 million in taxes when -- host: so my question this morning is about your level of satisfaction with u.s. politics. what do you think about our political system right now, and what do you think should change, if anything? caller: the republicans can't -- i will tell you how you cut. cut defense in half for 10

years, save $5 billion there. but corporate welfare. $1 trillion goes uncollected from corporate welfare. in 10 years, that is $10 trillion in the coffer. you save $20 trillion by cutting defense in half and getting these corporations and billionaires pay their fair share. it is ridiculous. host: what do we do to get other americans to agree with your point of view? the u.s. political system means the majority vote and the congress and the president and the supreme court act. how do you convince other people to agree with you? caller: you need to get the democrats in charge of all three chambers, because the republicans have fought minimum wage over the years. they have never been for the working man, they have been for the wealthy man.

they are not for the common people. they are for corporate welfare and these oil companies getting these subsidies, these tapper -- of these tax breaks. president biden said they made record profits and did not pay their fair share in taxes. it is ridiculous. host: let's go to steve, calling from san jose, california on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. the state of politics is really bad. the house, the group of about 12 that is going to shut down the government if they do not get their way is only trying to do the right thing. everybody agrees that our current level of spending is unsustainable, but the democrats

do not have a plan when we go broke and our money is worthless, what are we going to do now? i challenge you to have a democrat that -- on this program, on c-span, that promotes massive spending and deficits and ask him, when our money is worthless and we are paying more on the interest -- 50%, 75% on just interest -- what is the plan? host: so how do you get other people to agree with you? how do we get our political system where a plan can actually be made and passed through congress? because as you said, right now, nothing is being done. how do we get our system to wear something can be done? caller: it is very, very simple.

the only people that are expressing concern are fox news. the liberal news media -- abc, cbs, nbc, and, for the most part, cnn -- all the other news media is not sounding the alarm. if they do their job and they have people on that tell us, experts that tell us we have got to do something, then something will get done. host: all right. let's go to richard, -- lost richard. let's go to rusty, calling from greenbelt, maryland on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. i listen to "washington journal" all the time. i've never called in before. but i took the opportunity to call in this morning, because the topic is one that is -- one

that should really concern everyone in our nation. when you were posing the question or giving the opinion poll about how many people in the country trust the government , i cannot really say i am surprised by that, but the solution just gets kicked around all the time on this program, and i do not think there is any hard and fast solution to the problem. but i think the lack of stability and the lack of people on both sides of the aisle to be willing to work with one another really works against trying to solve a lot of the problems we have in the country, and i think hard decisions have to be made about the things the federal government is spending on. but it is really hard to get people to agree on that, and it

is very depressing to think they are not moving forward, not getting anywhere. host: all right. let's go a little bit more, look at this poll a little deeper, and see what americans are saying. the pew research poll we are talking about this morning asks americans what their level of satisfaction is with u.s. politics. here are a few paragraphs from that poll. a growing share of the public dislikes both political parties. nearly we numb in 10, 28 percent, express unfavorable views of both parties, the highest share in three decades of polling. a comparable share of adults, 25 percent, do not feel well represented by either party. speaking of the presidential campaign, as the presidential campaign heats up, 63% of americans say they are dissatisfied with the candidates who have emerged thus far. setting aside the presidential campaign, there has been a

downward trend in views of the quality of all political candidates. just when he 6% rate the quality of political candidates as very or somewhat good, down about 20 percentage points since 2018. and one last thing, the majorities back h and term limits and eliminating the electoral college, reflecting -- a large part of americans support a change to the political system, including establishing term limits for members of congress and scrapping the electoral college. age limits for both federal representatives and the supreme court drew broad support, but there is little appetite in the public for increasing the size of the house or ratifying the allocation of senate seats. we want to know your level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with u.s. politics.

what changes would you push? what ideas out there do you support, what ideas would you ignore? last night, at the phoenix awards dinner, president joe biden addressed the prospect of government shutdown, which seems to be on its way towards washington, d.c. here is what president joe biden had to say last night. [video clip] >> for those in congress owing so much division, they are willing to shut down the government, you know it better than anybody. just a few months ago, after long negotiations between myself and the new speaker, we agreed spending levels of government for a national security priority while still cutting the deficit by $1 trillion over the next decade. now, a small group of extreme republicans do not want to live up to the deal, so now everyone in america could be forced to pay the price. let's be clear.

if the government shuts down, that means members of congress, members of the u.s. military are going to have to continue the work and not get paid. a government code -- government shutdown. impact food safety to cancer research to headstart programs for children. finding the government, one of the most basic response abilities of congress, and it is time for republicans to start doing the job america elected them to do. let's get this done. host: let's see what is actually happening right now with this potential government shutdown. joining us a by zoom is a reporter, the congressional reporter for punch bowl news. she is going to update us on congress' latest effort to pass government funding bills before the september 30 deadline. good morning. guest: good morning. thank you for having me. host: tell us exactly where congress stands right now when

it comes to passing the government funding bill or coming up with a short term solution to prevent a government shutdown? guest: we saw last week that house republicans did not really move forward with any of the appropriations bill or the cr they had proposed earlier last weekend. right now, the plan that speaker mccarthy is working on with some of these negotiators is they want to actually try and get some of these appropriations bills that are less controversial past. they pass a bill for about four bills yesterday, and both are set to be passed tuesday. of course, that only gives them for five days to get all of that done before government funding runs out, so it is not enough time. also, i want to add speaker mccarthy did say he does not think acr is necessary. that is also a possibility, to

the detriment to some of his hard-line members. host: exactly what is congress doing right now? are they working over the weekend, or are they moving at a slow pace? or is there a sense of urgency on capitol hill right now? guest: members were working this weekend. they were on call by the whip. we did see a rules committee meeting yesterday, and that is why they were able to move ahead with some of these other bills. and a lot of other members did go home, and that was controversial among some people, who complained they should be here getting work done kate i would say that cents of urgency is evidently there for a lot of members i have talked to, but others who have been opposed to a stopgap bill and opposed to the kind of spending, some of these hard right republicans in the freedom caucus and some of those members are less so worried. they are not worried about a shut down and not worried about the timeline of what is going on. we will really see things come

to a head this weekend. host: who should we be looking at? is this negotiation going on strictly in the house? our senators involved in these negotiations? is the white house involved in these negotiations? or is this a house-only discussion? caller: i would say the focus is on the house. the finding has to originate from there, and they are the ones who have members who seem to be -- who do not seem to be super concerned about the possibility of a shutdown, so it is work on swing some of those are republicans who say this will not be the worst thing that happens, we have to get spending under control. the senate has a bipartisan proposal, a stopgap bill in case things need be, so there are members working behind the scenes in both chambers, looking at here is away both parties can come together and come up with a short-term solution just in case, but it will be a tough,

uphill battle right now for gop leadership in the house and getting everything done there. host: that has been a lot of attention paid to the house freedom caucus. is there a split in those members on exactly what should be done and how they deal with the future of possibly speaker mccarthy? guest: definitely. we saw that last weekend with the cr proposal put together by members of the house freedom caucus leadership and members of the main streets caucus, which is a group of moderate republicans, kind of an unusual faction there working on a proposal. but you did see many of their freedom caucus' own members reject that deal, saying it did not go far enough on x, y, z. the are some members who will not budge until there are cuts to the fbi, who say they say is weaponized against conservatives. there are some who say they will

knock on the stair is cuts to -- all members have their own issues they want to work through, but of was, there is always contention. host: tell us who you will be watching this week, who are the key players we should keep our eyes on. guest: so i've been definitely paying attention to some of these people who have been in and out of the whip's office all week. we saw leadership of the wisdom -- of the freedom caucus working with gop leadership, which is unusual. that is -- in line and we saw some of these other moderates come to the table as well. -- actually worked with matt gaetz on a proposal, in the midst of trying to get through some of these bills. and of course speaker mccarthy and the rest of gop leadership, he will be under a lot of pressure, and we will definitely watch how he handles it.

host: given your reporting, your sources, and what you have seen on the hill, how likely is it the government will shut down on september 30? guest: right now, i would say it is still a high likelihood the government will shut down, given the time crunch. lawmakers only have, at least in the house, four legislative days this upcoming week, with the jewish holiday, so that takes time away. it is just not going to be enough time to get through all of those bills, let alone negotiate probably a cr deal, which completely failed last week. we are really in a time crunch. right now we are on a trajectory to see that a trajectory to see the government shutdown on october 1. host: we would like to think because ulnar -- we would like to thank mica soellner on keeping us updated on what is going on in capitol hill. thank you for your time. guest: thank you. host: once again, with all of

this happening, what is your level of satisfaction with u.s. politics right now? is our government dysfunctional, or is our government operating exactly as it should? if you are dissatisfied, what changes do we need to make to the system to get a better working government? let's get back to our phone lines and talk to jackie, calling from virginia on the independent line. good morning. caller: this is jackie, and i think -- host: you are on, go ahead. caller: ok. i think we definitely should set limits on the time that the elections -- the people that are elected can stay in congress. and from the president down, it should be a set limit.

host: jackie, it sounds like you are in support of term limits. caller: i am in support of term limits, i am in support of bipartisan working together, and i think that they need to pull in some of the money from the people that we loaned it to and get it back, and i think we should need to cut what congress makes in half and put it toward the -- host: all right, let's go to frank, calling from aberdeen, maryland on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning morning. the basic function of our

representatives, if they are not talking to each other, they are not doing their job. and they have not, by large, been doing that since 1995 and newt gingrich declaring war on the democrats. it is one thing to go over and have a partisan battle on the floor, but it used to be that members of congress, their families got together. i remember listening to a guy who grew up, son of a senator, and all of his friends were sons of other members of infant parties. but they all lived and worked together. and i do have a solution. for this particular time, get the republicans doing their job, meaning they will probably have to get some democratic votes.

after they oust him, we do not have to have another member of congress to be speaker. i suggest we embrace reality and reject alternative facts and we nominate someone by rehabilitating -- and it is a person i very much disagree with politically but i respect her, and that is liz cheney. make her speaker of the house as a compromise through this session. it is the only way we can do it. i am sure we could get 150 saying republicans to join with enough democrats to do this. -- i am sure we could get 150 sane republicans to join with enough democrats to do this. it is a return to normal. host: let's get to jim, calling

from st. louis, missouri on the republican line. good morning. are you there? caller: yes, i am. host: go ahead. caller: yeah, i was just calling to say the government needs to start actually abiding by the constitution the way it was set up, and maybe if they would fund the government the right way and stop letting millions of people cross the border -- it is a place where people can come and seek sanctuary, but this is not the way it was supposed to be done. everybody knows that. the government should not be funded until we close the border and start doing things the proper way. host: now what changes would you make to make the government work in the proper way, as you put it? caller: well, just their start

working with each other and start abiding by the rules that are already set up. everybody keeps saying that the government is broken, but we have rules in place. if they abide by the rules, both parties, then i inc. maybe possibly they could get things done. -- then i think maybe possibly they could get things done. host: how do you get them -- how do you get your lawmakers to abide by the rules that were sent pier 1 of the rules is congress should pass a budget to fund the government. how do you get them to do that? caller: well, again, if both parties abide by what they are supposed to be doing, i think most of the time the republicans are upset because they are not doing what -- democrats are not doing what they are supposed to

do. they keep saying they are closing the border -- we all know it is not closed. there is people in this country, veterans, that are out on the streets, and we are giving billions of dollars to people that, i am sorry they are having problems, but we have enough problems in our own country to take care of. host: so how do we do this? right now, the republicans control one branch of congress, democrats control another branch of congress and the white house, and the supreme court is supposed to be nonpartisan. when you have diametrically opposing political views, how do you get to any plan to make the government work? caller: for one thing, when you're bringing up the supreme court, the supreme court is, as far as i know, the way it has been ruling has been by the rules that were in the constitution. they knew that roe v. wade was

not anything to do with -- i am trying to think, i apologize -- the lady that passed away even said, when she voted for roe v. wade that it was not constitutional. now, people get upset because the -- anyway, i am not a constitutional expert, i am just a layperson. but again, there are ways for this government to work. they have to, mitch mcconnell and schumer and the rest of them need to sit down and work this out instead of fighting over partisan stuff. host: now there have been lawmakers in this country who have changed parties or who start on one side of the aisle and then move to the other side

of the aisle. one of those lawmakers is arizona senator kyrsten sinema. after her announcement about becoming an independent last year, she sat with cnn and talk to them about what led to her decision. here is what senator sinema had to say. [video clip] >> a growing number of arizonans and people like me just do not feel like we fit neatly into one party's box or the other. so, like many across the state and the nation, i decided to leave that partisan process and really just focus on the work i think matters to arizonans and our country, which is solving problems in getting things done. >> so your voting record is pretty capital d democratic. your views are generally that of a moderate, centrist democrat. how does leaving the party change how you do your job? >> i do not think anything will change about how i do my job.

arizonans sent me to the united states senate to be an independent voice for our state, and i will continue doing that. what i think is important about the decision and this move is i will be able to show up to work every day as an independent and not be stuck into one party's demands are following without thinking. as we have seen in recent years, both parties have created this kind of requirement or a pull towards the edges that you just unthinkingly support all of one party's viewpoints. it has made it difficult to find folks who are willing to work together and solve problems. as you know, we have been able to do a lot of bipartisan work over the last couple years. i am incredibly proud of that, and i think it is important for folks across my state and, frankly, across the country to state -- say, yeah, there is

someone kind of like me. does not fit neatly into one box or another but is standing up for their values and what they believe in and is doing it without trying to get one over on the other party or beat the other guy. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying about their level of satisfaction with u.s. politics. here is one post from facebook that says the american public are too ppoo -- poorly educated to have satisfaction about politics. we have one fourth of the population who cares more about pronouns than starving people. we are misdirected. here's another post -- a tweet that says i am dissatisfied with politics. we have to many undereducated people in the government trying to discuss things they do not understand or think they know

everything and we yearn to be told what to think. another says politics is the wwe is -- of american culture. another post says americans are discussing the destruction of our usa by political traitors. in another post says satisfaction with u.s. politics -- not much. keep hoping for the best. that is our question to you, what is your level of satisfaction with u.s. politics right now? and, if you are satisfied, why do you think many people in america do not seem to be satisfied. if you are dissatisfied, what changes do we need to make? let's start with kathy from lincoln, nebraska on the independent line. caller: good morning to thank you for taking my call. i will try and make it short. the postal service is totally incompetent.

i have, when i send bills, it is taking a month. and now it happens so much frequently i am having to call, because i am getting late charges when i mailed it. i cannot believe, when i mail something, it takes a month to go to a different state. so the postal services, i do not know what happened, but it is bad and unfortunate. i am an independent. i believe, my belief is we should not have one president, that we should have a cabinet of equal, and it is the red versus the blue. it will never change until you get independent people who can sit down and negotiate things and take it happen for the people. the people in government get paid so much and have all these

-- the millionaires. i mean, they are rich, and we are poor. and their solution is to raise taxes and put it on the average person. if you worked at a job and you do not do your job, they do not keep you, not necessarily. a government is not working, they are not functioning, they are still getting paid, and all they want to do is fight. it is like the denver broncos or the miami dolphins. host: let's go to linda, calling from orange, connecticut on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. you look good, jesse. first of all, we should never be satisfied with our government. we should always want more. secondly, it is time the citizens, that we start coming

up with solutions as well. that we start paying for what we use. case in point, if i use an airport, i pay a $1 user fee on that ticket. if i take a train, i pay a $.25 user fee for my train ticket. all this money is designated to the proper upkeep, updating systems, and just come in general, we have to take a little more responsibility as the people who vote for our leaders. and we have to start using common sense. secondly, as for a government shutdown, one thing you never hear is the government shut down for physical reasons is insanity. it literally cost the u.s. taxpayer billions of dollars that we never recover every time

there is a government shutdown. so saying you are doing a shutdown to be more fiscally responsible is really throwing out the baby with the bathwater. host: let's go to james, calling from ohio on the republican line. good morning. caller: thank you, sir. i wanted to address the government shut down. i am overall satisfied with u.s. politics, but i feel that speaker mccarthy is over leveraging his commissions, using parliamentary procedures on this budget postal and threatening a shutdown to pay off political debts and give favors to people who helped him get the speakership. it really is a political game i really feel is insulting to the u.s. public. as a republican, i really thought someone else should have taken control of speaker of the house at that time.

for remediation purposes, if you wanted to talk about improvements, very limited ability to do that because of the fundamental right of the u.s. congress to kind of politic themselves and the majority party, but the congressional budget office, to enfranchise districts -- people would lose earmarks and lines they would otherwise merit, population on political situations and things of that nature. that is all i had to say. thank you for your time. host: let's go to connie, calling from california on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a couple of things. first of all, i do not know if you would be able to pull up a chart of what nations are finding ukraine.

we are probably the ones putting in most of the money. another thing, biden is going to different places, different nations, different countries to talk about this and that. what about our country? look at our border. it is out of hand. those trains coming in -- i forgot what her position is -- those trains coming in case she says they are close to schools, close to the town, close to people's residence, and when the trains stops, those aliens are jumping off the trains, and she says they are people, and she is afraid now people are taking their kids to school because they are afraid for their children. also, there are some of them

down to the streets -- migrants who are jumping off, they are there on the street asking for money. and people are afraid to go through the town by themselves. also, are those people getting money, by any chance? i want to the mark of the other day, to cosco and sam's. people that i did not understand their language had their cards will of groceries. so i do not know if you can check into that. and i love talking to you, because you are such a patient man. host: let's go to elaine, calling from texas on the democratic line. good morning. caller: thank you. i love your tie. host: thank you. go ahead. caller: the problem that we are having -- if the republicans were just let trump go. he is running it.

he is still there. mccarthy needs to get rid of marjorie taylor greene. that is the problem. host: let's go to denny, calling from maryland on -- debbie, calling from maryland on the republican line. caller: good morning. i think the government should shut down. i do not think people realize this, but there is a lot of people that are not even working. they are working from home did you call any government agency, and you cannot get through. you get aggravated. you leave messages, you leave messages. you either have to get up and go down there, go somewhere, social security, social services, everybody. i think it is better to shut down now, because if we are forced to shut down later, it is going to be a bigger mess. and i am a republican and i support trump, and i also say,

every time people call in saying "maga, making america great again," they are making us stronger -- every time i hear it, i cannot believe they keep saying it. in the white house, there is drugs. cocaine and marijuana. they check into that, within a week, they investigated, it was done. host: all right. former biden administration chief of staff ron klein recently made comments about mistrust in government while doing an interview at georgetown university. here is what ron kind has to say about mistrust in government. [video clip] >> only 9% of republicans right now say they trust government, but only 29% of democrats say they do. the true is reversed when there is a republican president. under a trump administration,

only 14% of democrats said they trust the government but only 21% of republicans said they did. talk a little, because the mistrust in government seems to be one of the few things we all agree on as americans, so talk about polarization. >> i think government is a broader phrase. it covers a lot of different things. i did an interview with a podcast talking about this k-1 of the institutions most lost the trust of the american people is the supreme court. so you asked all of the government if you trust the government, they say no. a lot of the distrust is around the supreme court as a result of ultraconservative rulings. people look at that as the government. it is the government. it is not the biden administration, but it is the government. i understand why a lot of people who care about individual liberties and freedoms and equality have distrust in the supreme court and its dedication to those things. i think it adds to that on the side of the democrats there.

so we have a divided government in the sense we have a very conservative supreme court and a democratic resident and democratic senate and now a republican house. when you ask me, do i trust the government, the question is, who are you asking me about? it is a complicated question. host: once again, our question to you this morning is what is your level of satisfaction with u.s. politics? a new "washington post" poll says there is not much satisfaction in the two top vote getters in the current polls for the next u.s. president. i want to bring a couple president -- paragraphs from the new "washington post" story to you. a "washington post"-abc news poll finds president biden struggling to get -- a rising share saying the united

states is doing too much to aid ukraine in its war with russia and broad concerns about his age as he seeks a second term. biden and former president trump appeared to be headed for a rematch of their 2020 contest, although -- biden's advisers have argued you is the strongest democrat for 2024, and those who wish for someone else share no consensus on who that should be, with a percent naming vice president harris, a percent naming senator bernie sanders, 20% saying they prefer someone else. the "post"-abc poll shows trump -- biden trailing trump by 10 percentage points, although the sizable margin of trump's lead in the survey is significantly at odds with other public upping in polls which shows the contest

as a dead heat. that is from the "washington post" this morning with a poll saying biden faces criticism on the economy and age. what is your level of satisfaction with u.s. politics? let's talk with earl. caller: good morning. listen, i am not a well educated man, and i do not like biden, but he did create 13 million jobs. and he is standing up to putin, which trump was scared to death of putin. scared to death of him. and trump is behind this shut down or whatever it is, because look at the people wanting to shut it down. they are all trumpies. trump's the worst guy i know as

president, because i worked for trump, and the always was wanting to go bankrupt -- i was a roofer up in philadelphia. we went to atlantic city and did the casinos he had. and he was always trying to scam and jam. he is no good. i do not like biden, but he did create 13 million jobs. he did do the thing with the vaccines for covid. and he is not afraid of putin. host: let's go to russell, calling from fairfax, virginia on the democratic line. caller: hi, jesse. the reason i am calling is, in the last election, 43 million students seemed to give an awful lot of votes for biden for the debt relief, which got shot down by the republicans and the supreme court. now i believe there is a bill

going through now, where the democrats are asking for a zero interest bill. pay your loan, forget about the interest. my question is do you think this is good enough for the republicans to agree to? host: all right. let's go to carla, calling from wayne city, illinois on the republican line. good morning. are you there? are you there? caller: yes, i am here. host: all right, go ahead. caller: i have several dissatisfied things. one is at the video of joe biden speaking about how everybody needs to do their job? well when you spend your

presidential vacation -- to me, that is wasted money. host: all right. let's go to tammy, calling from vienna, georgia on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you? host: just fine. go ahead. caller: my level of satisfaction is none. personally, i believe that, from top down, we should just clean the house altogether. we are in a mess. we have no viable candidate in either party. the only people who have prospered in this country in the last 10 or 15 years are the politicians. biden, all this money we are sending to ukraine, you know we are sending all this money to ukraine, he does not care about ukraine. he carries they have the goods on him to approve the collusion between them and his son and the

whole party -- host: now let me ask you this question. you say you do not like any of the politicians that are sitting in office right now. where do we find new candidates from? most of the politicians in office are lawyers or some other type of professional. where do we find the people to represent us in congress or in these political offices? where should we go to look for them? caller: somebody that works 40 hours a week and knows -- does not spend money they do not have. it is common sense. you cannot spend money you do not have. host: all right. let's go to tyrone calling from columbus, ohio on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. my name is tyrone, and i want to call and say i am satisfied, but

at the same time, the democrats do not like the white folks and there were do not like the black folks. so they are not going to get anything done. what they have to do, basically what i think, is if there is going to be a shut down, they do not get paid. if they do not get paid, they will think about it twice or whatever. i also want to listen to these folks talking about the justice department. well, i've been in court, and i had a jury, an all-white jury. that is what we had back in the 1980's and 1990's, and all-white jury. we did not complain about that. but has anybody ever saw an all-black jury? would they be satisfied with an all-black jury the same way they

are with an all-white jury? the only thing i can say about the shut down is if they do not get paid, nobody gets paid. host: speaking of partisanship, democratic senator chris coons and florida republican senator marco rubio debated a number of topics, including bipartisanship in washington, d.c. here is a portion of their conversation. [video clip] >> bipartisan solutions are lasting solutions. and i am here because of that exchange with one of our framers, one of our founders, benjamin franklin. a republic, if you can keep it. i have moved from confidence about the future of our democracy grave concern. we have seen, in our 13 years in the senate together, how frequently we are voting, how frequently we have regular order, how frequently we are

meaningfully legislating. our senate floor is empty and silent most of the time. so i am here because i was invited to take the stage with someone who has served as long as i and with whom i have legislated across the ark of our 13 years. i just turned 60 last saturday, and i am starting to ask myself, how much more can i do? how much more of an impact can i have? i am confident, without this work without reigniting the spirit of hatch and kennedy, we are at risk of losing this most sacred project of our republic. >> senator rubio? >> i am here primarily to convince chris coons with me on everything, but that apparently has not worked. [laughter] all kidding aside, one of the most important things is to understand what a means. bipartisan does not mean you agree on the issues, specifically on how to solve them. it means you agree that process

matters in solving them. the lack of that, especially in this day and age, is hurting the country. i think there are real challenges our country is facing, and they are not just in politics. in many ways, our politics is a mirror that reflect our culture and society. american politics is as polarized as america. what we are trying to do in america is always hard. we are as diverse society and culture as has ever existed, yet somehow we have to figure out a way, out of all these different people and all these different ideas, to build one nation. that is hard. host: once again, our question to you, what is your level of satisfaction with u.s. politics? you just saw two senators talking about bipartisanship. do we need more bipartisanship? do we need less? what would you do to change u.s. politics? let's talk to gary, calling from new hampshire on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, and thank

you. i am not satisfied with this government care but i was watching the house judiciary committee with merrick garland, and i was annoyed that the republicans did not allow him to answer any questions. when you are before a committee and you are on a committee panel answering questions, you should be permitted to answer questions . the republicans on that committee one not allowing him to answer any questions. i do not know why jim jordan allowed this to go on. host: let's talk to hal, calling on the republik in line. -- republican line. good morning. caller: hello. i think we are the common people, and the politicians are the privileged people. they are making all kinds of rules that apply to their

benefit. there is no touch anymore between the common and the privileged care that is all i got to say. thanks. host: let's talk to susan, calling from new york on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. my idea is quite different from anybody else's. i've been looking at this government for years now, and what we need is a democrat to run and a republican to run with him instead of two separate parties did find two people who can work together who are from two different parties to put the congress together again instead of having them so angry at each other. if they can get two people, like have a republican run as president or a democrat run as president, and their vp the republican. then our government would have to work together. because they would be bipartisan.

they would have to work together. that way, they would take care of the person who is president, if it was a democrat, the democrat would watch out for him and the republicans would watch out for their vp, so we have a government that has to work together. i know it sounds a bit odd, but i think that is the only way we are going to get his country to pull together, if we realize that the people in this country want -- host: let's go to ruth, calling from illinois on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, jesse. i got one thing to say to the guy from ohio before i make my statement. mark luther king junior was a republican, not a democrat. and i am no racist. but i am an independent that

stands up for america. i would like to say, these people coming across the border, biden put it out, he don't want them coming across the board anymore, and he will send a jet to bring them anywhere they want. he has put 687 people on jets. host: all right. let's go to thomas, calling from texas on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you doing? host: just fine. go ahead. caller: i want to say this is basically still got to do with the rich against the poor and racism. like the other callers said, back in the day, the constitution still wanted

slippery, and they wanted people enslaved because the rich did not want us to come out of flavor, because that is how they made their money. so my point is -- which is totally racist, and then it is hard to vote for the democrats, because they do not want to touch police reform. we are still living in two worlds where they are still institutionalizing us because of culture. host: let's go to johnson, calling from connecticut on the republican line. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. first off, i was a government major in college. that is what i studied.

we headed down to washington -- was headed down to washington, decided not to do it. was offered an internship and decided not to do it. this is back in the 1960's, so this is like vietnam era. so i've been studying and watching politics for years now. interesting comments by many of your callers about how government should work and how it could work and make it better. i think there was a lady who mentioned something about having two parties, a president and vice president from two different parties. interesting concept. i thought about that, and i

thought here we go. what we would end up doing is it would paralyze the country with politics or, as she said, it would force the government to work together. what happens is i think it is by design that the parties are meant to go at each other. host: unfortunately, we are going to run out of time. thank you for all of our callers and social media followers for coming on that segment as we talked about the level of satisfaction with u.s. politics. coming up next, we will be talking to pen america center's ceo, suzanne nossel, author of the book "dare to speak: defending free speech for all." she will be discussing free and later former representatives david brat will be here to

discuss the future of the republican party. stick with us, we will be right back. ♪ >> this week on the c-span networks the house and senate return. both chambers will continue work on government spending bills. on thursday the house oversight and accountability committee will hold its first hearing on president biden. an armor subcommittee will hold a hearing on the recent fires in hawaii. watch this week live on the c-span networks or on c-span now, our free mobile video app. head over to c-span.org for

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wherever you get your podcasts. >> a healthy democracy does not just look like this. it looks like this where americans can see democracy at work, the citizens are truly informed. get informed straight from the source on c-span unfiltered, unbiased, word for word from the nation's capital to wherever you are because the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span power by cable. >> washington journal continues. host: we are back and we are joined by susan nozzle, the ceo of 10 american center and the author of "dare to speak." she is here to talk to us about the state of free speech in america.

good morning. tell our viewers exactly what the 10 american center is. guest: our organization is 10 america and our goal is to defend freedom of speech worldwide. we are an organization of writers. we host engagements with writers and then we have a powerful advocacy arm that works on freedom of speech issues here and around the world. much of that focuses on writers who were jailed, sometimes murdered for the crime of expressing themselves. we worked to secure their freedom and we tackle bigger free-speech policy issues.

cultural repression in ukraine and how that has been used as both a motivation and a method of war and then a lot of our work is right here in the united states. americans are used to thinking of free-speech rights as secure in our own country and that is just not true. we tackle the forces of government sponsorship and softer censorious this coming from the right and the left. we are trying to reconcile the need for our campuses to be more diverse and inclusive without compromising robust protections for free speech. we have also tackled and are at the forefront of combating book bands and educational censorship, which has become a powerful wave across many southern states in the united

states with unprecedented levels of book banning happening in our schools and our libraries. we also look at what is happening online -- disinformation. how can this platforms be kept free and open but also places where reasoned discourse can occur and are not flooded by falsehoods and mendacious posts. it is a busy agenda. host: where does your organization get its money from? guest: it is very diversified. we make money from individuals, foundations, events. we we have some cultural support from the city of new york. it is quite diversified. host: exactly how is free-speech defined in america? tell our viewers exactly. how

-- tell our viewers exactly how you define free-speech. how does the constitution define free-speech? guest: when we talk about free-speech, the first thing that comes to mind is the first amendment. the first amendment says that no government should impair our ability to affect our freedom of, our freedom to speak, and our ability to redress the government for grievances. courts have interpreted it to encapsulate any type of government. even that would says "congress shall not make it a lot," that has been extended -- make a

law," that has been extended to state governments. w ie have things like the fda that regulates the things you can say about drugs. we prohibit certain forms of harassment even though they may be delivered verbally. the first amendment is not absolute but it is very broad. the challenge for an organization like penn america is that so much of what we are grappling with today does not particularly implicate the actions of a state. when you have accusations that social media companies are biased in how they moderate content, that too much conservative speech is being suppressed -- that is an allegation that has been substantiated, by did is not about a state.

it is not about state agencies stepping in to arbitrate who can say what. it is a private platform and private platforms have their own first amendment rights. first amendment rights applied to private companies. the first amendment does not answer whether a platform should be required to keep certain speech that people find offensive up or whether it is free to take it down. it does not answer whether at a private university a speaker who has been invited but then becomes the object of protests can be disinvited by the university. those are things that happened that people feel constrain our discourse. there is a lot of concern about whether we are able to have the vibrant event take that underpins a robust democracy and a free-flowing society but not all of those concerns implicate

the first amendment and or the actions of government. that makes the work of penn america substantially more complex. host: what do you think the state free-speech in america is right now? are we better than where we used to be? are we getting worse? guest: it is a complex answer. the first amendment was steadily extended through the last century. one century ago there were bands on things like sedition -- bans on things like sedition. after a whole series of decisions the supreme court extended the first amendment so even young students have first amendment rights in schools. that was a real positive for

free-speech, and in that sense we are in a better place then we were a century ago. we also have the advent of the internet. when the internet and social media first came on the scene there was tremendous enthusiasm among human rights advocate on the basis that people all of a sudden could communicate across boundaries. if you wanted to reach an audience, you had a good idea, or just a brilliant joke, you do not have to get published in a magazine, you could just put it out there and reach a mass audience on your own at virtually no cost. the feeling was that this was a huge boon for free-speech. we saw things like the arab spring where people were able to assemble relying on these online tools. that was a real boon for free-speech but right now we face an encroaching environment for free-speech coming from

multiple directions. there are on campuses in particular a sense of a chilling effect. i was talking to a professor just the other day who said in law school she can no longer rely on students in her class to raise their hands. the only way to generate discussion is by calling on them and assigning them a point of view to articulate. she will say "you represent what justice scalia would have said, and you represent what justice ginsburg would have said." if you do not insert those points of view they will not have the courage to express their own points of view because that is seen as high risk. if you say something people disagree with, that could follow you around. someone could post that on social media. someone might even take a video

of you, not in the classroom, but may be the street. speaking your mind, saying your piece can be high-risk in this environment. on the other side we see this ferocious wave -- i think this is the more serious threat -- of government-sponsored bands and prohibitions on books and curriculum in our higher education institutions.we issued a report last week on the state of banning in america. we counted 362 books banned over the course of the 2022-2023 school year. this has been a tool -- become a tool of choices in our. culture war a lot of it focuses on lgbtq and

transgender stories, stories that implicate racial issues and racial justice in some way, so there is a fierce debate of thought about those narratives, what stories we should be telling our young people, what should we be teaching in the college classroom, and there is a resort to government-sponsored censorship at a level we have not witnessed in this country for many decades. i do worry that free-speech is at risk of losing its mooring on the right and left side of the spectrum. host: let me take this time to get our viewers to take part in this conversation. we will open up a regular lines. democrats, you can call in at (202) 748-8000. republicans, your number is (202) 748-8001. independents, you can call (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, you can always

text us at (202) 748-8003. we are always reading on social media. suzanne, like you just said your organization put out a new report just last week noting that there has been a spike of almost 33% in book bans over the last school year. why do you think of a is going up? aren't book bans almost useless now given that information is readily available to anyone with a cell phone or computer? guest: yeah. one thing i have observed working in this area is

that information in courses freely online and out of the control of parents, who often have very little idea of what their kids are accessing on the internet. what that can do paradoxically is intensified the impulse to control that, which you can control. if you have no idea what your kids are looking at online, you will clampdown on what they are reading in the classroom because that is the place where you have an opportunity t exert force. it his perverse. if people are worried about the messages kids are getting, overwhelmingly those messages are coming from their phones not from books. this is not an organic movement where people are seeing their kids' backpack and pulling a book out and saying

"this seems inappropriate for the age of my child." it is a movement that is dedicated to challenging books, challenging educators. we released a report in august about what we call educational intimidation bills. those are bills that are often times requiring teachers to post publicly saying every piece of content on the school curriculum, every last reading assignment, worksheet that kids might work on, and members of the community -- they don't have to be parents in the school -- can raise objections. you have to think twice. i theres anything on here that might upset someone? will they come after me? will they be upset if we talk about puberty in the classroom? if we talk about the history of slavery? we talk about the civil rights

movement? will that get me into trouble? maybe the better approach is to play it safe and choose things that are very traditional, that were taught many years ago. i worry there are teachers that are leaving the profession. we are also having kids growing up who will have to navigate a very diverse, pluralistic society, and are they getting the tools to do so if we are taking things out of the canon? host: where are we seeing these look banne -- book bans? is it in a particular part of the country? guest: the number one state according to our latest report is florida. it accounts for 40% of the book bandss we -- book bans we

recorded nationally. it is concentrated in certain states. it does happen at all levels. at the university level it is not book bans but it is prohibition on curriculums. in florida device of concepts, historic theories -- divisive concepts, historic theories that might stoke racial tensions, or might make people feel guilty based on their race are prohibited. it is defined very broadly. there are all sorts of materials that might cause people to question their own identity or the role a certain racial group has played over our history, supervisors and university administrators are left to decide what classes align here?

they err on the side of caution. that is by design. that is how censorship works. it is not just about what meets the letter of the law. it is about this wider effect where you start to wonder about what flirts closer to the line and might get you into trouble. host: i can already anticipate some of the arguments i am going to hear. don't parents have the right o have their children -- right to have their children exposed to controversial information when they want? guest: absolutely. i am a parent as well. parents have rights. if there is information you don't think your kid is ready for or runs counter to your

beliefs, you talk to the teacher or the principal. you don't file a complaint or a lawsuit to get a new restriction enshrined into law. the way that this normal give-and-take between parents and schools has been escalated is destructive. what we see is in the name of parents' rights -- a long-standing concept -- what we are seeing are small groups of parents who do not want their kids exposed to certain ideas dictating that the entire school or and entire school system is subject to those restrictions. the sedo are exhibiting -- the few are exerting their wills over the many.

in the approach -- in a lot of these school districts, the approaches to take the book off the shelf. we have filed a lawsuit where a single teacher got 120 bucks removed from shelves on their own initiative. -- 120 books removed from shelves on their own initiative. host: who should be in charge of deciding which books are appropriate for schools, which books should be appropriate for public libraries? who do we put in charge of that? guest: we have always had a

system where we have professionals, librarians, school administrators, teachers making those decisions. there is interchange with members of the community, with parents. there are bylaws back and forth. that has worked pretty well. maybe it is not perfect. over the years we would get a few complaints about book bans, a handful a year. we would write a letter and the bug would be restored to the shelf. now -- book would be restored to the shelf. now our schools are becoming real battlegrounds. teachers and librarians are on the run virtually because it has gotten so hostile. that is dysfunctional. our public schools and libraries are an incubator for a democratic society. that is where we a train people to engage with ideas they

might disagree with. host: let's let some of our viewers take part in this conversation. let's start with keith calling from denver, colorado on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. i love this discussion. i worked in scholarly publishing at universities. to be honest, with the threat to free speech, the tension is coming vastly from the right. you have cited some of the states, and i woke, anti-lgbt -- anti-woke, anti-lgbt things. it which -- it boils down to

something, which is fear-based on ignorance. on the right we can see that a lot of the people do not even have some college. they are high school graduates. i asked one of their leaders here on c-span that exact question -- what makes you think you can go into libraries in schools with your lack of knowledge and dictate for others. i and black -- i am black, 63 years old. who is the president of the pta? school boards have always existed. i have never seen so much hate directed at minorities and lgbt people in reston -- recent decades. it is madness. host: go ahead and respond,

suzanne. guest: it is true. these bans are aimed at people of color. it is aimed at rolling back the tide of social change into exclude these narratives from our discourse to prevent young people from taking on board these perspectives that some communities might consider alternative. it is a real departure. you mentioned the pta. there are ways to engage constructively with the school and teachers if you have concerns. we have probably all done that as parents. that is within your rights. you can do it in an appropriate way. to turn our schools into battlegrounds especially after covid related laws.

we need our kids to catch up. it is sad to see the degree to which in some of the schools they are being torn apart. host: since we brought up this topic, recently on washington journal moms for liberty responded to claims that her organization targets and bans books about race. here's what she said. [video clip] >> that is not correct. that specific instance they point to in tennessee is a biracial mom came to us. her son wanted to wash the white part out of his skin. they went in and discovered there was a 6 week part of the

curriculum that was a social justice curriculum for second graders. the book ruby bridges is a wonderful book. our chapter had a complaint that the teacher's manual that went along with that bug pointed out things to these young second graders -- book pointed out things to these young second graders. this child was so confused. he was embarrassed by one of his parents. these are issues in america that need to be discussed. these are not things that should be squashed. we have biracial children in this country. they are perfect the way they are, and we need to address these issues and we need to address these issue. that are concerning them.

they -- host: respond to her. guest: i think there is an agreement that parents need to have a say. we need to be thoughtful about how we approach some of these sensitive topics, especially for gun children. i don't argue that every piece of curriculum is exactly the way i would want to message something for a kid in second grade, but the answer cannot be bans and restrictions. the answer has to be dialogue. if there is a piece of curriculum that is an appropriate, bring that up. have a conversation. that has always happened. the idea that the movement is confined to those edge cases is false. we see the banning of the diary of anne frank or about roberto

clemente. these books go beyond edge cases where you can debate is this age-appropriate? is this the right way to talk about race? some people might disagree. we will never be incomplete consensus. this movement has gone far beyond trying to push back the edges and to say "some of these materials and messaging might wind up being counterproductive. i have seen materials myself from time to time that seem to be tendentious or too one-sided and that should be pointed out. to wage a campaign of book bans, many of which are enshrined in

law, goes way too far and cannot possibly be justified in the name of trying to tweak and perfect how it is that we talk about these sensitive topics in school. host: let's talk to melody calling from calle, maine. good morning. caller: good morning. it is actually callous, main. hundreds of people in the publishing business called on penguin random house to cancel publication of justice amy coney barrett's upcoming book. this suggests to me that many of the people who signed the letter were pen members. it also suggests that the majority of pen members are right-wing. how can pen justify banning that book? guest: we were against the banning of that book. we did a report called book las

h. it is about how the language of harm is being used to justify the withdrawing and withholding of books by a publishing houses. books become controversial. there can be online mobilization and pressure. amy coney barrett, for example, is one of them. the pressure is coming from inside the house. it is the employees of the publishing house objecting and saying "we don't want to work on this." we reject that at pen america. people can express their opinions, we should be giving readers the ability to evaluate a book. we should not be deep-sixed in a book on the basis of who the author is.

they -- we don't think there should be barriers to freedom of the imagination and what a writer is allowed to write about. we don't think the personal conduct of an author should be cause to withhold a book. if the book has value and has ideas that readers should have access to. we encourage readers to seek out book lash. on sites like goodreads there can be a piling on before people even read the book based on the identity of the author or what people think the book is about before they have even read it, and we find that very counterproductive. host: let's go to jason calling from wake forest, north carolina on the republican line.

good morning. caller: good morning. 72%, according to cnn disagree with everything this democrat marxist just said. it is not racist to not want to teach her children to be gay. c-span will not play what kennedy did weeks ago. jesse on this show will not play what he said because that would destroy the washington journal, cnn, abc, it would destroy this lady's narrative. host: do you want to respond? guest: i'm not sure i understood what the caller was getting at. the piece of it that i heard is this concern that there is indoctrination happening in schools.

at pen america we are against indoctrination of any kind. we believe kids should be exposed to a wide variety of stories, ideas, theories, historical concepts so they can make their own decisions and form their own judgments. obviously, that has to happen in different ways and that different grade levels. it will not be the same in second grade as it is when you are a senior in high school. we our a pluralistic society. there should not be dictates. there should not be a single way to think or believe. host: let's call to james calling from virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. what i would like to say is first of all i think some of this stuff is very hypocritical in the way that we think about it. we have had no problem for my

entire life and i am 64 talking about what was done to the jews in germany. we don't have a problem putting it out there, but then when it comes to subjects like critical race theory, which affect people in this country in the way that people think, all of a sudden we believe that we shouldn't say anything that could hurt someone's feelings, be detrimental, and by the way that term "critical race theory," i hate that term. it makes people think bad things as opposed to people learning that all we are going to do is do american history. it is not black history. it is not african-american history. it is american history. when it comes to those things, as a black american i don't

think that white americans are horrible, evil people. i think that the things that happened during the civil rights movement, i don't go as far back as slavery, i go back as far as jim crow. the reason is i don't know anyone who was a slave. .these things happened . it is part of history. you learn from history. you do not repeat it if you learned that it was not a good thing. we should not be banning books that teach what happens to the american indians, that teach what happened to the black americans in this country, that teach all kinds of things no matter what it is. host: go ahead and respond to him. guest: i agree. we have to be able to reckon with difficult topics. we are a pluralistic society.

we have to figure out how to live together and, that will not happen by suppressing certain storable experiences. we have to create environments in our schools where people are free to raise questions and they won't feel like if they bring up a certain fact they may be accused of being racist or sexist or biased in certain ways. we need to create an environment where people can sort through information to form their own opinions. the first amendment and shrines -- enshrines putting that power in the hands of the people. people are better at dictating what is inbounds.

now they are taking that away, saying state legislators should dictate what stories are inbound. that runs counter to our traditions. we vest that authority in the hands of the people, and we trust people to on balance get it more right than government will. host: let's talk to tom calling from san diego, california. caller: i think that we should remember that we are a christo centric republic. not a democracy. democracy is what the romans had. there is a simple solution for this. give people vouchers and your children will be raised

according to their beliefss. everyone gets a fair share of the money. host: go ahead and respond that. guest: with respect, i don't agree. i feel that public schools in this country are crucial underpinning of our democracy. i as had experience with private schools, with public schools, my own kids have gone through public school. i don't believe a vulcanized country where everyone is doubling down on our own beliefs and consorting only with the like-minded, i don't think that will be a well-functioning society. i feel for my own kids one of the most important things that the public schools have done for them is give them the experience and the comfort level with getting to know and working with

and becoming friends with people from very different backgrounds. in this pluralistic society where we have no one single dominant racial group, that is an absolutely crucial thing to know. the more that we siphon resource away from the public education system, the more we undercut that. host: let's talk to howard who is calling from north carolina on the democratic line. good morning. guest: -- caller: i just heard something disturbing that all of this generated from a white child who read something and started scrubbing his skin. we know that the holy bible is also a book written by jews and other scholars, people of color.

crucifixion, a man of color was crucified on the cross by romans. when a little white boy or a white girl read that part and found out that they crucified christ, are we going to ban that book as well? guest: it is a good question because in utah where they are banning books on the basis that any depiction of sex equals pornography, there has been a challenge launched against the bible, citing passages in the bible that would not meet that standard. it is considered pornography under that definition. it points out how ridiculous these standards are. they have a legal definition of pornography and it bears no resemblance to the books being

challenged on that basis. it is a powerful reminder of what is at stake here. we have always had books that contain multitudes and ideas and depictions that may be challenging, that may not be a hundred percent age-appropriate for every level, and we have grappled with that as a society. we have never banned the bible and i don't think we should start now. host: there was a hearing that looked at book bans in schools. i want to look at what max even said about what he thinks a book ban means. here's what he said to the senate. [video clip] >> to put it bluntly books are not being and and it is -- bann ed and it is good that they are. in common usage banned means

unavailable but gender queer is available on amazon. the same cannot be said of when harry met sally. this conversation focuses on school libraries availability. if ban means made unavailable then every book ever published has been effectively banned in school libraries. a book can be both banned and totally available in a school library because the media has accepted the expansive definition of ban reported by p en america. if a buck moves a -- if a schoolb moves a book to a --

of my public school library did not carry mein kampf. was it banned? i don't know. host: respond to what he said there. guest: the first point he makes is that even if a book is withdrawn from schools it is still available on amazon. it b is nota -- it is not banned. what that leaves out is for a large portion of children in this country, schools and libraries are the primary places they access books. they do not have an amazon account a wealthy suburban kid might have the luxury of ordering off of whenever they like. if the book is not available at

school or at the library, they do not have access to it. the second issue he is raising is with respect to temporary bans. in our definition of book bans we have been clear from the outset that we do include temporary bans. we have been consistent in our methodology. ou goal is to put forwardr a consistent -- we do not include cases where a teacher chooses not to stock a book or buy a book for their classroom or library. those decisions are made dagan dagan. -- day in, day out. we select cases where

teachers have put a book on the shelf and in response to an objection they get pulled away, a book that was previously available that a professional decided should be made accessible to children is been denied. those denials happen during an investigation. the school will have a board that is supposed to read the book, but the best practices that have been laid out for years by the american library association, by the national coalition against censorship testified that during that review, the book should stay on the shelf and at the end of the review, if you decide it is not appropriate for second grade, then you take it away, you do not preemptively take it away, and sometimes these reviews can be ongoing for years so a whole classroom of children can lose

access to that book. when donald trump was banned from twitter and facebook, he later was restored. he is back on those platforms. does that mean he was never banned? i don't think so. we are explicit about how we define bans. people can disagree with us, but i don't think there is any question that when a book that was available is taken away because somebody objected to it, thought it was controversial, protested it, students are denied access to the book, that is something worth talking about. the fact that that is becoming more prevalent is a concern. host: let's go to richard calling from nashville, tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. suzanne, i can't pronounce your last name, but i am 67 years old

and i look at the school system. i used to deal with teachers in a different way than the educational part of it, but being in the school system, whether it was the elementary level, i would see things. a secretary was an old retired librarian. she had to go from the card stock up to the internet. they can ban books all they want to, and i don't want kids reading things that are not subject to their appropriate age, but as long as you go to a grocery store, it is the same thing as a father or mother would do with their kit, put a cartoon on. i and in the grocery store all the time, and i see children, their mom and their dads send them -- hand them a cell phone. all you have to do is push a

button wrong and that will bring up pornography. the reason i called was to get away from the school system, because that is a big issue, but slander in this country -- years ago i was a little boy and i remember a man in our town got sued for slandering another man another man. can you expend on how slander can hurt people on social media or in a newspaper? free speech made take people into a slender situation. host: go ahead and respond. guest: we have had a couple really interesting cases of slander and defamation in recent years. as a free expression

organization, we don't want those rules to be applied expansively. we 130 be a lot of freedom to say what you want about an individual or a, company but there is a certain line -- we want there to be a lot of freedom to say what you want about an individual or a company, but there is a certain line. most recently there was alex jones and his contention that sandy hook was a false flag operation, that the parents were paid actors, and they sued. they won against alex jones. they were subject to death threats. it was traumatic. the other one was dominion and fox news where dominion voting systems thought news anchors group parted -- anchors

reportedly said that dominion voting machines yielded false election results. it was false, and they knew it was false. it dominion could not so machines where there reputation -- their reputation had been damaged. fox news agreed to pay because they realize to these claims were so wrong. they should have stopped this false information from being propagated. that line is one that courts will defend. it is a high standard to prove defamation, but there are certain circumstances where it has been successfully done. host: we have run out of time, but we would like to thank his suzanne nozzle, the ceo of penn america for being here and talking to us. she is also the author of "dare

to speak: defending free speech for all." coming up we will talk about your most important political topic of the day in our open forum segment. we will open up our regular lines so if you would like to talk about an important political topic call in now. we will later have david brought the former, virginia republican to talk about the future of the republican party. stick with us, we will be right back. ♪ >> weekends renew book tv, featuring -- weekends bring you book tv. ben carson talked about his book

created equal where he discusses way to preserve the american dream for generations to come. on afterwords make kissinger recounts her family's struggle with mental illness with her book "while you were out." she is interviewed by rob waters. watch book tv every weekend on c-span two and find a full schedule on your program guide. ♪ >> monday watches c-span's new series books that shaped america. we wills feature the federalist compilation of essayss -- federalists, compilations of essays by alexander hamilton and john j.

our guests will discuss why those essays are considered one of the most important references for understanding the original intent of the constitution. watch books that shaped america with the federalists. skin the qr code to listen to our companion -- scan the qr code to listen to our companion podcast where you can learn more about the authors featured. ♪ >> c-span's campaign 24 coverages your front-row seat to the presidential election. watch as we cover the campaign trail with meet and greets, speeches and more. campaign 2024 on the c-span network.

c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. ♪ >> washington journal continues. host: we are back and we are in our open forum segment where you can call in and talk about your most important political topic of the day. democrats, we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8000. republicans, your line is (202) 748-8001. independents, you can call (202) 748-8002. you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. we are always reading on social media at x and on facebook.com/ cspan. let's go to derek calling from richmond, indiana on the democratic line. caller: good morning.

i one did to collin this morning and talk about the major pull -- call in this morning and talk about the major political issue we are facing -- a lack of civility. we are running up against the deadline here with government funding. this, was before my time but, reading about political history i like to think back to the 80's with tip o'neill and bob michael,, leaders of the house one democrat, won republican but they always seemed to work together. times have changed but we, need to find a way to get back to that mentality of working together and finding common ground to benefit our country, to benefit the west coast, the east coast, to benefit everyone. host: let's talk to louis who is calling from waycross, georgia

on the independent line. good morning. caller:, jesse there is one thing that will bring this nation together. it is called death. this nation is headed for trouble. there is a book in the bible called j-o-b. very first sentence -- "there was a man that lived in the land of uz." when you see the flag of jesus christ waving over the capitol and the white house, you will know that that man has arrived. host: let's go to eagle river, wisconsin on the republican line. bob, good morning. caller: i wanted to talk about the schooling system. democrats think they are smart and have the education behind them. why is it that every democratic

city has the worst schools with the worst test scores in the country? i don't think they have any place teaching sexual education in schools. this is ridiculous. they think they are so smart but the middle of the country, republican land, our kids have wonderful educations. our school has shop, mental shop, woodshop, civics, cooking, everything. i don't know where all that money in the democratic cities those four. their schools are run down. our schools are beautiful. i don't know how democrats think republicans are so stupid. it does not make sense to me. host: in the news today i whats has been happening with senator bob menendez of new jersey. i we'll bring you a couple of paragraphs from roll call that

talks about what is going on with senator bob menendez. "the indictment of bob menendez comes several months before he is going to be on the ballot seeking a fourth term and as his party is playing defense. indicted friday along with his wife nadine on federal bribery charges, menendez said he was confident that this matter will be successfully resolved once all of the facts are presented. he said he would not be distracted by faceless allegations. he resigned as the leader of the foreign relations committee. schumer also called menendez a mannequin in public service and said he has a right to due process." that comes from roll call talking about what is going on with senator bob menendez right now. you can call in and talk about

what your most important political topic is. let's talk to mary calling for meridians city. host: terry, good morning. caller: good morning how are you? host: just fine go ahead. caller: i have two things. the spending on ukraine was $75 billion it is almost 100 thousand dollars per individual in the united states. here is the point, win we going to learn? vietnam, afghanistan, korea, iraq, all the same and then we start sending money and 10 years from now we will have money gone. there is the real issue, it

ukraine cannot fight russia with the amount of people. eventually they will need troops. is joe biden going to send american soldiers over there? history says we will. he does not want to admit we lost the war. i guarantee he will send troops. host: reading connecticut independent line. good morning. caller: yes i am calling a regard to the one you had on earlier and she was talking about censorship well facebook as well as twitter you were both co-opted by the fbi to censor conservatives. essentially that is government

influencing the person which is clearly prohibited from the constitution. she failed to mention that. also in regard to censorship of books or banning books, adults can read anything they want. what she pointed out is that we are talking about children here. children need the guidance of their parents in order to decide what their children will read. period. it has nothing to do with banning books, no books are being banned. host: alright let's go to jerry the color from long beach, washington on the republican line -- the caller from long beach, washington. on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning i have a complaint about c-span. there was a room order from the hill on c-span and spouting out

a lot of stuff about january 6 that was not true. i called in and wanted to make a comment. the woman that answered the phone asked me -- i said i would like to comment. and i said i would like to recommend that c-span but on the chief police of the capitol police force and she hung up on me and never let me explain why. at the end of the day and you put that guy on there and let us talk to him and let him say what he does it will open up a whole lot of new thoughts about it. i saw him on a couple months ago and now as see c-span and -- he will be called to testify. i highly recommend that he will be on the show so we can ask him questions. host: the former capitol police chief -- you can go on c-span.org and find testimony from the former capitol police

chief who has testified in congress on january 6 security failure. you can find that at c-span.org type in capitol police chief. you can find him talking about what happened on january 6 and his testimony in congress on c-span.org. go to our website and you can find it. go to marshall who is calling from richardson, texas on the democrat line. good morning. caller: thank you. good morning. i have a comment and i am a democrat but where there is smoke there is fire, bobby mendez, he needs to be looked at in my opinion. that is all. thank you very much. host: let's go to lorenzo calling from new jersey on the independent line. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. good morning. my comment is all these -- this

type is based on this is a country of freedom. therefore, the fight that everyone is talking i firmly believe that we just have to go back to the principles of what we are founded on. that is all i have to say. host: let's go to sharon calling from ohio on the republican line. sharon, good morning. caller: yes, good morning. host: turn your television down. caller: ok good morning. i am calling because there is so much confusion and chaos in the world right now. it will continue for months to come. i know it will. i know why people go back to the constitution, go back to the 10

commandment when god said the man on the hill came down and seeing all these people going crazy and stuff. the reason he sent all these people to different countries and different languages that they could not understand is because -- why can't we have one person in every state control their state? why can't we have those states take care of our country? host: let's talk to alberto who is calling from california on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. this is albert. i need about 30 seconds up to 60 seconds. i don't see how we can however we want to say it is saving ukraine when we cannot even stop people from right next to us who is mexico.

how we are getting venezuela across mexico to the border is unbelievable. so, i say we build the wall, stop the fentanyl and get a hold of mexico city's government and the cartels that are polluting our country right to where i stand right today. host: let's talk to tim who is calling from kentucky on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning. host: good morning. caller: yes, i would say either side that is guilty when they catch him it is not a democrat or republican thing. host: let's go to harry who is calling from lansdale, pennsylvania on republican line. good morning. caller: hello. it is hairy.

host: sorry my mistake. caller: it is good to be with you. i called about the uaw strike. i know everybody has been talking about how important it is that we heal that wound and move on. we are getting word since 2007 we have concession in regards to new hires and they are also concerned about the benefits and the cost of living for the workers and i just wanted to give my two cents in here. we have a level playing field on both sides, but it seems as though the workers are working hard and that they are taking a generational take in the auto industry. with the advent of the new electric vehicles they believe that this is a windfall that will benefit everybody.

so we are hoping that things are solved. solutions for the strike, there are solutions and the quicker the better. host: the hill has a story talking about this week's upcoming republican presidential debate that i want to bring to you. it says the scene of what we will see later this week. here is what the hill has to say. former president trump, the former front runner of the republican presidential race is skipping the parties set again presidential debate this week -- that is despite his absence. why the gop candidates will only have a handful of minutes to share their message straps message is striking autoworkers granting him undivided attention in the center of a pressing national issue. although he appeared at the great lakes state, it may not

full too many eyeballs to the main stage. the split trade between the two will likely highlight the republican race. the leader of this event and the drive to the general election while other competitors -- many see what is a contest or second place. so former president trump is skipping the second wiccan residential bait. that will be happening this week on wednesday. once again we are in our open forum segment calling in to talk about your most important living for topic. let's talk to iris from alabama on the independent line. did i pronounce the name of your town right? caller: good morning. yes in the lower south of alabama. i have a piece to say, a comment whatever you want to say. you know it seems to me i have a

caravan of mexicans coming across the border until donald trump first came into the picture. now we have another caravan coming into the future. well he is coming to save the day so he can finish building his great wall. -- china in my opinion could stop anybody from coming over here if they want because that is a desert. when they walk out into that desert you can see them coming. all you would have to do is stop them. are they holding, how much is donald trump paying the mexican president to make them leave? who are they holding hostage? who has the families out of their homes? they cannot work and have jobs. i firmly believe this. host: let's go to robert calling

from kentucky on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling concerning a color vigil called a while ago earlier talking about biden if he gets his second term that he will send troops into ukraine. well, in vietnam 1968 through 72 there were more young black men who went to vietnam like 68,000 lyndon b. johnson grabbed it. he was black. 50 some thousand expanded and then someone in the last race was native indian. the black man had put more -- through the united states in more and everything another -- never recognized another. that is what i have to say. host: all right. we would like to thank all of our callers who called in for

our open form segment. coming up next virginia republican representative dave -- will be here to discuss the u.s. house and the future of the republican party. stick with us. we will be right back. ♪ >> derrick smith is the approach -- associate professor of rhetoric in pennsylvania. he is the cofounder and through found -- he wrote we cure endlessly -- care in loosely about -- white supremacy, black/white income gap and paris's -- police brutality. this has become so controversial

that those of us that oppose a counter narrative frequently find our orbs being misconstrued in an effort to have their impact. announcer: author and professor eric smith on this episode of book notes plus. it is free on c-span now or wherever you get your podcast. ♪ announcer: live sunday on in-depth. author and media theorist douglas russia joins the tv to talk about the consequences of the digital resolution, human economy, cyberculture and more. his book includes president shaw and -- survival of the richest in 2020 detailed the plan of tech billionaires surviving after the war -- earth is

inhabitable due to climate change or and other catastrophic event. join this conversation with your phone call, facebook comments, and text. live sunday at noon eastern on book tv and on c-span 2. announcer: c-span studentcam documentary competition is back celebrating 20 years. this year's theme looking forward while considering the past. we are asking middle and high school students to make a axman it video to address one of the questions, in the next 20 years what is the most change he would like to see in america? or over the past 20 years what has been the most important change in america? as we do each year, we are giving away $100,000 in total rises with the grand prize of $5,000 and every teacher who has students participate in this year's competition has the opportunity to share in a

portion of an additional $50,000. the deadline is id, january 19, 2024. for information visit our website at studentcam.org. announcer: washington journal continues. host: we are back and we are joined this morning by representative david -- here to talk about the stalemate in the u.s. house and the republican party. thank you for being with us today. guest: thank you for having me on. i appreciate it. host: remind people how you first got in the house of representatives. in the 2014 primary you had the gop majority leader. guest: yeah i ran against the person who was going to be the next speaker of the house. and i had $150,000 versus $5

million and i won somehow and i consider that a your article but i ran on the irony of irony the republicans created -- creed. and the republicans do not keep the creed. among the items in there you hear from the constitution, fiscal responsibility and there are virtues them facing god and etc. all the principles that make the country great, adherence to free market. today we fail across the border ought -- across the board on all of them. we have a deficit of $2 trillion this year. we are taking in 5 trillion spending 7 trillion. how do you do that? you run a deficit and it means you are stealing 2 trillion a year right now from the kids. you stealing that is in the big 10 commandments. that the people on the planet follow.

all those abraham and across the board. so i ran on all of those things. and i was in congress for 20 years. i think the people will liked it, but it is very interesting folks might get, but they are not voting right now to implement those ideas either. it is very frustrating for me to see this budget plan on the same way it has played out for 30 years. the leadership always kicks the can down the road and they do not do the 12 budgets they are supposed to do. they have one issue budget item, bill that is debated in public for everyone to see. so i ran on all of that and i was in the freedom caucus with about 40 of the -- principles. we were called every name in the book. for i ran i was the liberal arts professor in the community and i

was the economy is considered kind of boring. but as soon as you go to d.c. and say i want a list spending you get in all sorts of trouble. i ran on that and then voted that way. the small was not lee's with those decision -- the swamp was not pleased with those decisions and then i also talked on the border now you have a mayor of new york city saying the border issue is the group -- destroying his city. when you run on the fundamentals, the fundamentals are first will things that are there for a reason. they matter in the long run. if you violate the order of things over a long period of time your country will take a hit. we are taking a hit. that is the short summary. host: you have vice provost for public engagements at liberty university. you left congress in 20 after getting beat by abigail

spanberger. this is election season, i have to ask are you thinking about running for office again? guest: no i am happy with the young folks working at the university. i get to do all the things i love. my heart is still with the good guys and good gals out there trying to do the heavy work. i had great friends across the aisle we would debate and argue in the morning and then have a riot. unfortunately that would -- never gets reported but i had great friendships, the running is so brutal. i do not have enough time to explain the pain and i will pray for the folks up there. they need your support on a daily basis. host: while you were in congress you were on the budget committee. you talked a little bit about this, but tell as your opinion on the current budget impasse. do you think we will ever see the 12 budget bills passed by

congress again under the system we have? guest: well thanks to 10-20 people we may actually see congress operate like it is supposed to operate. the context here matters. just for the people who do not know, we are $30 trillion in debt right now. that is a lot of zeros. we are 50 trillion in debt in 10 years according to cbo the congressional budget office. every number i use here will be an official number. just so you can know what that means, right now the federal reserve that got us into this mess in 2007 and 2008 financial crisis and then reduce the bubble by keeping interest rates at 0410 years, that set up the financial crisis scenario that we live in. the budget was kind of the budget was kind of in peace there. the real economy itself, it is

not the stock or get, you are making all the gdp that goes into services. in the productivity per capita stuff has been going down 50 years in a row. this is nothing new, this catastrophe. we are just playing out the last part of a catastrophe where it is really getting bad. with interest rates of 5% now, on $50 trillion, that is $2.5 trillion in just interest payments that we will pay in 10 years. when i was in congress, the whole budget was $5 trillion. the interest payment would be half of the entire budget unless we do something. the press, it is stunning to me. was it a pain to shut down? of course, but there is more pain if you lose your country and lose your financial arc at and the way we operate with the free market system. the kids will have no future. you have to juxtapose $50

trillion as opposed to trying to get these 12 bills through. right now, i do think we have a chance of getting these 12 bills through. we are supposed to do that. it is called regular reporter. they prevent that on both sides and they agree that. i was on the budget committee and i was told here at the end of the six-month period. you can chat all you want but this is the number you want to come up with. that is not a republic functioning, the leads have taken control of our budget and our country. it is up to the people to pay attention to these things. the best thing about regular order and having these 12 bills they have to be debated on public in c-span. thank you for what you all do. every amendment will come up,

issues of the order will come up, issues on ukraine war and an extra $20 billion over the 200 billion dollars that we have already sent their, that they will not audit and it cannot account for it. they have not come up before congress to ask for authority for war. that is another thing that is constitutional adherence. the republican creed. there is no accountability unless you have debate in front of the american people. that is a crucial part, you may win some or lose some, but if everyone sees that debate and then you lose, that is a country. we are a republic. i think both sides can appreciate that, but both would want to make shortcuts. at the end of the day, what a lot of people don't know is this country was set up with the huge separation of power. now all the power in this world is situated in washington dc.

it has 500 counties in the country surrounding washington dc. the top 10% of the wealthy owned , 90% of the stocks and bonds are in a retirement account. when you go $50 trillion in debt the bondholders are not going to get clipped. the bondholders are wealthy, they are connected, they will not have that so how do you pay off trillion dollars in debt? everybody knows you cannot pay it off anymore. even my free-market buddies and i'm more of a populist free-market camp right now because of this issue. the idea you will do tax cuts and generate $50 trillion in debt is laughable. the idea where you cannot even save one dollar and you will somehow get rid of $2 trillion deficit per year right now, everybody knows we will not pay out the debt, we will default in one way or another. the way were going to -- the way

it will happen they will want four or 5% inflation ongoing and then that pays back debt with trooper dollars -- cheaper dollars. right now they want to bring inflation out of the economy so it is down from nine and they say the target is to and then they are trying to restore order to get us out of the super bubble for what the federal reserve created. after that you can expect long run, moderate inflation is the rule of the game. it is only way to pay $50 trillion in debt. host: before we go further i want to let the viewers know they can take part of the conversation we will open our regular lines so democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, independents (202) 748-8002. keep in mind you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. and we are always on social media on x at c-span wj and on

facebook at facebook.com/c-span. are you predicting that a government shutdown will happen? if there is a shut down, how long do you think it will last? what is it going to take to get both sides of congress and the president to agree to something? guest: yeah well i forgot to cover that. the republicans are acting like everybody is going to say this is a bipartisan agreement. of course it is, the irony of ironies is that republicans do not appear to understand they owned the house. it is republican. fair is fair and guess what the body that is supposed to represent the people is the house. we originate the budget. the idea that the senate and white house, you've -- find the whole thing is so displaced. the president doesn't understand any of this, i don't think. is there going to be a shut down

? i don't know. is this -- why does the speaker send everybody home when we have 10 days to do 12 hills. this is what i'm telling you this is taking shape because this is for the last 30 years they've been shaping crisis. and they seo man you got to do this or the country will fall apart. the country has already fallen apart. that is the point i'm making. the real economy, if you took out a trillion dollars on the fed reserve balanceheet and you took out $2 trillion in spending stimulus right now, ask yourself at the economy would look like if we were not stealing from the kids. the answer is it would collapse immediately you would be in at depression not a recession. it is likely we have a shut down, if we get our act together it is likely would -- we would not have one. congress voted on this several months ago to do it's actually what they were talking about and

i guess they failed to come through on their ominous -- their promise. they shut down hopefully for a few days while they get the 12 hills together. it is not hard. it is not rocket science. host: i'm going to ask your opinion of house speaker mccarthy is doing and one leaving the house and to dealing with his budget impasse. guest: it is nothing personal. i -- on the republican creed we promised, all the terms of this budget issue if the term limit failed -- balanced budget amendment bringing forward 12 bills. he did not keep his word on it. and so i think you failed on that one. you've got to tell the truth and do what you are going to say you're going to do. and you cannot wait on a crises

to say we've got to wait for some bipartisan thing and just fail. you're looking at a $7 trillion cut to the 50 trillion over 10 years. the republicans were interested a little bit in that then it was $4 trillion and the freedom caucus came up for trillion dollars off of $50 trillion. that is still not making a dent and you are calling all sorts of names for proposing rational ideas. mccarthy went to the white house and they did not want to cut. mccarthy agreed to it which is no cut. now we have 50 trillion debt in no years -- how are we doing on debt? not great. host: how is he doing as a leader of the house republicans? guest: i'm not in the conference anymore, but if the speaker is responsible for shaping rational outcomes, this is one of the biggest deals they have to deal with. he can do far better.

host: we have also have a president republican mary for the presidential line to coming up. earlier this month gop president and foreman are governor ron desantis criticize the government. i want to put ron desantis what he said on the screen and let you respond. here is what he said l's be we are we did not get 30 true trillion dollars in btust because of one alrea it is because of republicans and dim rats have bankrupt the country. donald trump added almost a trillion dollars to the debt in four years. he did make the promise and they did the opposite. what you have to say to governor ron desantis? guest: i like him he is one of the smartest guys up there. i was friends with him in the weight room and all that stuff. that is fine, but trump did pull a trillion dollars off of the fed reserve balance sheet which no one else has done.

and for the first time blue-collar wages went up for the first time in 40 years. on the physical side we could have done better. it depends on if you include the covid numbers and their. that was a big thing but back then i was in there and i was not happy, but again, c-span is just a little bit framed here. one of the major points of got to take up is that the democrats are never brought up in the conversation. if you can name me one democrat which involved in this garage sponsor ability -- responsibility right now i would give you a trophy. biden is running to trillion dollar f -- deficits. in the democrats senate i have not heard one person who has said we cannot have $2 trillion in debt. yet it takes to parties, but one party at least has a small band of who want to cut. so for people who criticize the party for downward pressure on

$50 trillion in debt needs to be displayed. you need to aim your eyeballs also -- i wish we had more liberals in. now the liberals are gone. -- junior is a liberal and i like the things that he is saying about dispersion of power in the country. but now we used to care about education for kids across the board, the poorest of the poor, the debt that will question the kids, where are they? i don't know. it does take two to tango, all the pressure for downward budgets, to avoid the 50 trillion financial crisis is coming out of the republican party. i do not want to get into taking on the side that is trying to do something. and again those that you can name if you can name someone who is doing it it is not political it is just pure economics and

numbers. i have not seen it out of the democratic party. and what they have -- the views in politics are on my own i'm not speaking on behalf of a politician or any institution. host: let's get to our collars. we start with henry calling from michigan on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to say that our greatest problem in the country is the rot in our government. lying is brought. everybody knows that hatred is rot. criminality is brought. we have a major political party who has at its head man with all of those characteristics and actions and they are willing to follow him over the cliff. when he was in office, the country was in debt.

it was in the same kind of debt and they always talked about how both sides do it. president biden is trying to get us on the road to fiscal responsibility. host: go ahead and respond. guest: i agree that d.c. in the swamp is full of rot. but there i agree it is bipartisan rot. the way out of this, to me, the reason why i am republican, i am a free-market person, i believe in pounders, i went to princeton seminary, madison went there and wrote the constitution. it has a very human nature. if you want to solve the -- problem, here's the question to my liberal friends. and there were 90 liberals and me having fun every day. no problem there, but if there is a ton of rot in washington

dc, do you propose we increase the size of it or decrease it? this is the simplest question that i cannot get over. if we do not see that you need to bring power back to the states and lead the people run their government again -- i don't know who we are talking about we hear the head of already first but which is it? and there is no simple case. both sides can take each other. there is a way to solve the problem institutionally and that is to restore a justice department that is lying. the rule of the law is what made the country great. this country needs to be ruled by a justice department, cia and the court to get back to justice. if you break the law you are prosecuted and get a speedy trial. you let the court adjudicated in they will rot.

that needs to happen. no matter how powerful you are. i will go back to the 2007 2008 financial crosses -- crisis. there was brought and nobody went to jail.this is a bipartisan issue that we should agree on. they talked to john taylor at stanford he is the best on monetary policy in the country. they produced a disaster but the agencies and the firms and government lied and lied and lied and set up the next about -- the next super bubble. wages are flatter than a pancake for the average worker. i believe there is corruption but the answer to the corruption is to shrink the size of the federal government. it is that simple. host: let's go to dominic calling from notes field virginia on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning.

i have enjoyed the discussion so far but the last caller believes joe biden is the solution to cutting the deficit or the budget. he is living in a dream world. i am a retired engineer, i can do math. i would suggest that you write a book, former congressman and discuss the real man involved in what the deficit interest rate made in inflation. we should take back the power from the fed, congress should act on that. they have -- a judge jury executioner on the budget. guest: yeah, i agree. that is probably both sides again. bipartisan, one of the greatest things we can do is bring about economic education. the kids are being thrown into it getting in the war and they are catering to that education right now. many cannot read at the third grade level.

instead of focusing on economic literacy we are focusing on an assortment of oddities. it is a very serious issue. the caller had it just right. the problem is very few people know who the -- what the federal reserve is. they become way too powerful. they are under congress. right now they go forward with the central bank digital currency. they are running -- the staff has been studying it and writing on it for 4-5 years. it people do not know what central bank digital currency is they have not looked into china where china runs on a totalitarian -- and they are going full on marxist linen. if you do not know what any of that means you've got to study that because what it means is it is not good. there are surveillance dates and they use their central government and central banks to spy on people and they can shut down your transaction if you do

not believe you do -- behave you do not get a house if you do not behavior kids cannot go to college, etc.. we come back to the central issue, do you want to put more power in the federal government to surveilled you and control you or would you like your freedom back? my liberal brothers and sisters, the words liberal comes out of liberty. we all used to be agreed on this they used to fight the republicans and they were right on a lot of the first amendment to move speech, liberty etc.. where are they? we all need to join up on this. the idea that the federal government gets to control us, the entire architecture of the constitution on which was set up to protect us from the government, right so both sides are lobbing bombs about tyranny and deficit and smashes -- it is awful terms. how do you get rid of that? you reduce the size of the federal government.

in the past it was run by dictators, pharaohs and tyrants. and they made 100,000 dollars a year until 1776 until modern economic growth took off. it is a free-market system, the market -- is a social choice. you can either go back to central government for you can maintain freedom. there is no such thing as partial freedom. there's no such thing as partial democracy. . you are either created in the image of god which everyone out there in my view is created in the image of god. and i say that for every single person listening that is -- i don't care what party you are in. you are made in that image and the weight to protect that is to ensure the separation of power and a smaller federal government. host: speaking of sending money

there is debate going on right now on how much money the united states is giving ukraine and foreign policy. where do you stand on that and what do you think the country should be doing? guest: i follow john deere scheiber the university of chicago in 06 where he talked about our position on ukraine. he had it exactly right. he said do not quote the russian bear. ukraine upstate do not mess with it. they are doing fine and can get rich. they have individual political rights. if you poke the bear and you proceed with the united states and europe and nato to poke the bear and insist that we put them, ukraine into nato, russia has made it very clear with what they will do in response. that is precisely what happened. people miss the history and they don't know how we got in the thing. we should not be there.

right now the russians could crush the ukrainians in a day if they wanted to but they do not want to do that because it will ignite a global war and they have to live with their islamic mothers and sisters. my position is that we should have been there. we need to get to the peace table immediately. tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of ukrainians have died, young kids are being slaughtered, to what end? that end and purpose has not been stated or even debated in front of the american people. at least have a debate, i am of course against the funding. we have a border problem in our country and no one will fund that. this is not partisan anymore, it used to be where you would follow the rules of law. it is not partisan we have laws on the books that are not being enforced. enforce them.

host: let's go back to the phone lines and start with josh calling from hamilton ohio on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. it is great to hear you, i want to get your thoughts on the inflation drivers. you talked about government runaway spending, to me, i think our restrictive energy policies and all the regulatory complex that we have related to all the things climate change and all of a sudden what dictates what kind of car you can buy and all these kinds of things seem to be real inflation drivers to me. i just wanted to get your take on what the major inflation drivers are so that we can start to figure out how to tackle them. guest: great question in the way

you went through it was very smart. i am old-school on this. there was only one inflation driver in economic comment milton friedman university of chicago the equation of exchange in the holes dq. -- m v equals pq. when he determines inflation. the point you made we can add policy that aggravates inflation and energy is the perfect example. if you go back to the 2007 2008 crisis i debated john sanford and i lost. i said what about the no income mortgages? of course they are responsible for the financial crisis, nope they are proximate causes but not the ultimate cause. the ultimate cause is the fed printed too much money into thousand five. moneys washing around and it had to go somewhere. you printed too much money and

you've already taken advantage of the best investment that you can make. and it goes next into the lower level investment. it all went into real estate and you know the story after that. go watch the big short, the movie summarizes it pretty well. on inflation, there was a trillion dollars on the federal reserve balance sheet. now the government but the federal reserve. it went from $1 trillion to eight true -- a $.2 trillion today that is how much money and liquidity we have shoved out there to save this economy. what you are not saying -- not seeing as we do not have a real economy. if you took away the stimulus it is all gone. the most important variable that we do not pay attention to in congress is productivity. that is the amount of stuff you make per hour.

the expert in the world is in northwestern, i do not even know the politics, robert gordon has had his chart and he has been a scholar for the next 30-40 years. productivity has gone down for 50 years in a row used to be fivers fix and now it is one or two. government productivity here is the leaning into your green stuff. it is about europe right -- euro right now. .5 on a good day negative on a bad day. and friends from nigeria the u.s. government is forcing them to do green policy. they are interested in agricultural productivity and advancements and the basics. the u.s. government is forcing a mandate on green policy because all the green money has a flow through the small ndc. it is available for for -- for corruption. the beauty of a market system is there is a buyer and a seller

and you have to agree. i have no problem with paying clean air, clean water and being green as long as choose it. it is freedom. the idea it is going through the swat etc. can aggravate inflation. that is the size of it. the main point is our government is now $7 trillion out of the $25 trillion economy. it is more than one fourth of the economy moving its way to one third of the economy. as i said earlier all of human it -- history has been evident of what has happened. if you want to run this through the federal government you're in for a disaster. host: are those topics going to come up this week in washington including the upcoming impeachment inquiry of president joe biden. do you think this is time to be talking about this with all the problems we have? do you support with the house republicans are doing in this impeachment and worry.

inquiry? guest: i hope now i am sounding like a broken record. i do not care what party you are in, but the evidence forward and give people a fair and speedy trial with notion and against. there should be no political actors going after anybody on either party. the problem is we that denies and politicize our judiciary now and our court system. the justice department and the cia and the fbi. it is evidence -- as evidence for this, we had 51 senior intelligence, recognize names go along with this russia -- for three years. i use that is my one example because that one has been completely debunked, that consumes the national media with no research, no presumption of innocence for three years

russia, russia, russia. everything is russia. so something is very broken in our country and we need to fix it. host: let's go to callers we have barbara calling on the democrat line. good morning. caller: hello thank you for focusing on financial literacy because god knows we need it. i'm a 40 year viewer of c-span and the actions that chair powell has taken over the past year to try to tame inflation down to 2%, i understand the general concept involved. 10 minutes ago you were explaining what the federal reserve balance sheet is. that is where my ignorance level comes up. i would like for you to try and go back to what you say earlier and repeat it in same terms,

different terms, i do not understand the role of the federal reserve balance sheet in terms of dictating what happens with inflation. and one more thing, you mentioned the bi market, i am in the 1% of retiree 76 years old with six-figure retirement income. i am following this so much because my life depends on it. i understand that stocks go up and down and the factors that go into that but he said the bond market will not be accepted because if i understand rightly those are promises bonds are basically promises of a return and of a are locked in. i do not understand what you're trying to say about they take bonds out of the picture so what is left? and what the hell is a federal reserve balance sheet? how does it relate to where we are at? guest: very good good stuff i am out there on brat economics and there are economic charts that cover all of this and youtube is a wonderful resource for young kids on it.

i will not be able to unpack all of that. but i will clarify the bond. what i would say is true. the federal government and the fed reserve when they finally decide on how to run the economy going forward. when you're $50 trillion in debt, economic growth will not make sense. we will not grow our way out of it and be able to pay off debt. that is issue one and everyone knows that is true. issue two, we cannot afford to -- to trillion dollar payment on this in 50 years. so it comes to how do you solve the problem? there are two probabilities, there's probably more about one is you default on the bond. you pay back $.50 on the dollar. who owns the bond currently? the rich they own everything the top 10% own 90% of all

retirement fund pensions. i've got that chart on brat economics. as far as the balance sheet, you do not need to get into complexity, but picture what has to happen if the economy is in trouble the fed has to throw money into circulation intro the fed throwing out money how did it do that? it prints money and puts green dollar bills out into the hands of people and in exchange it gives treasury bills and puts those on the balance sheet. it is the eight point true trillion dollars representing the amount of money they shove down there to keep a dying economy afloat. that is the main issue i'm trying to drive through here. if you took away the $8 trillion in money, that is also called

discipline. if you do not put the money out there the economy has to resort itself. and parents have to evaluate how bio live? how will i educate my kids? i think parents are getting to that stage right now because that is the only thing you got left. the federal financial picture will be a disaster. anybody living out there right now, get your kids educated in the real deal because that is what will matter. you cannot become independent financially and you are relying on the federal government for anything in 10-20 years you will be in dire shape. any politician that says other than that is not telling you the truth. that is the simplest way i can put it wake. thank you for calling. host: we have a call from dan barry, connecticut. republican line. good morning. caller: good morning i think congress needs to step up their oversight over also we get something for the money they do

spend. we have an infrastructure project here that was budgeted 100 million dollars, somehow they got funding for $300 million. our elected oversights says they cannot get straight answers as to why. to me it is he simple, just get the money back. take the money back. i am tired of spending on trillions more of health care and access to health care is worse. billions on roads, the roads here are much worse, millions on food food electric projects and the grid here is worse. i think they need to focus, they are looking over the people who are elected and they need to get something for the money we spend. guest: yeah i do not have much to add to that. that was pretty well said. so you throw the money up into washington dc and then they've got a subcontract it out and find people and get help -- guess how they find people?

they find people that send them checks and they get first dibs. and you say that you came out partisan because of the government -- that is called crony capitalism. it is associated with banana republic where you give this industry to your cousin and this industry to somebody else. and we are on our way there. and as you said we get less productivity across the board. that is why productivity is going down to zero right now. productivity is the same thing as your wage rate it is gdp per capita and it is a wage rate for the american worker. why is that going down? our economic performance is going down. why is that going down? we do not talk to people anymore. were taking all the power and money to the government. i would like to give the detail of the infrastructure you are talking out for everybody listening this is good for you. for the federal government if

you are a small business person marking a new contracting infrastructure or whatever you're doing, the fed government should be the last resort. there are some cases they are, currency and national defense. some things only the federal government can do. that is what they should do. other than that the state should be doing yet. and the state should be the last resort if the locality cannot do it. it has been commonsense for a thousand years but even the local government should not do it if people can do it. if the people can do it first they should do it that way you get all the money in your wallet. i don't know how anyone can be against this. and so it is very simple, but everybody human nature is not good. read genesis three, read any other intelligent philosopher in the history of thought. plato, aristotle, khanna, you can name them all they all had a negative view of human nature

except russo who is leading to their fragile evolution -- french revolution.. i will not eve go there but no belief in god or human rights and no belief in annex -- ethical system. what you think you will get out of that? this goes very deep and it is all related. you can get your system set up right or you crash. host: we will run out of time but this is a political thing you say you are not running again are you supporting anybody in the republican presidential primary right now? guest: i don't even do that. my growth record status is that i support those who follow the republican creed. at the federal level i have a list of three issues for everybody. it is never personal i try to not make it personal, i want to know your position on the $50 trillion in debt. it took up the whole show, i want to know your position on

china, their surveillance state that the united dates number one trading partner. and where we helped to write the code that punishes their sleigh plan. morally how do you feel about that? and the border issue which is now, used to be everyone thought it was a political hack job. where you said every state is a border state in every city is a border city, and a bunch of right-wingers get called names and now it is back and forth. if you do not follow the rule of all it will turn into a disaster. i ask every candidate and i am shocked, no one will put those three on paper. if you put those three on paper i support you and if you do not put them on paper, not the much. host: we would like to thank dave brat who is the vice provost for that -- public elections at liberty university and former representative. for being here today and talking

through the budgets of government funding and the root -- future of the republican party. enke for being here. guest: god best -- god bless c-span and everyone out there. have a great sunday. host: and we have more topics on washington journal, and continue to have a safe day everyone. have a great sunday. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]